Cancelled planned operations
Month ending 31 July 2021

About this release

This release by Public Health Scotland (PHS) provides a monthly update on the number of operations in NHSScotland that were cancelled the day before, or on the day the patient was due to be treated. Information on the reasons for cancellations are also included.

Main points

• The total number of planned operations across NHSScotland during July 2021 was 19,253. This represents a decrease of 12.5% from 22,014 in June 2021 but is 71.5% higher than July 2020 when services for non-urgent care were beginning to resume. When comparing the latest month to a pre-pandemic position in July 2019, there is a decrease of 28.4% from 26,890.
• In July 2021, 1,592 operations, or 8.3% of all planned operations, were cancelled the day before or on the day the patient was due to be treated. This compares to 1,643 (7.5%) in June 2021, 699 (6.2%) in July 2020 and 2,345 (8.7%) in July 2019. At NHS board level this percentage ranged from 4.5% to 10.6% in July 2021 for all but one NHS board. The exception was NHS Highland, reporting a rate of 21.4% due to an issue with their eye clinic.
• Of all planned operations during July 2021, 525 (2.7%) were cancelled by the hospital based on clinical reasons, 581 (3.0%) were cancelled by the hospital due to capacity or non-clinical reasons, 395 (2.1%) were cancelled by the patient and 91 (0.5%) were cancelled due to other reasons.

Background

These statistics are released monthly. Data for this publication are submitted from NHS board theatre systems.

The following definitions are used for the cancellation reason groupings:

• Cancellation based on clinical reason by hospital includes 'patient unwell', 'patient not prepared for procedure correctly by hospital' and 'patient did not follow pre op instruction'.
• Cancellation based on capacity or non-clinical reason by hospital includes 'no beds available', 'staff not available', 'equipment not available' and 'theatre session overran'.
• Cancellation by patient includes 'patient decides not to go ahead with procedure', 'patient unable to attend', 'patient did not attend' and 'patient did not attend pre-op'.
• Other includes 'fire alarm prevents operation from taking place', 'weather prevented patient / staff travelling' and 'patient transport did not arrive in time to bring patient to hospital'.

These statistics continue to be affected by the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic. During the early stage of the outbreak, many operations were cancelled well ahead of their planned date, particularly if related to non-urgent elective treatment. Boards started to resume relevant services, from June 2020 but a second wave of cases emerged in the autumn and as the number of hospitalisations escalated during the winter months some boards temporarily paused non-urgent elective care again.

Further information

For more information on cancelled planned operations see the cancelled planned operations section of the Data and Intelligence website (external website). For related topics, please see the waiting times pages on the Data and Intelligence website (external website).

A selection of information from this publication is included in NHS Performs (external website).

The next release of this publication will be October 2021.